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Man receives 4.5 months of jail time for Twitter rape threats

One of the tweets that Nunn posted to one of his Twitter accounts surrounding the approval of Jane Austen's image for the £10 note. The tweet did not feature in his trial in relation to Creasy, but it was part of one of his blog posts that served as background to characterize his attitude toward women.

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The threatening tweets of a British man have earned him 18 weeks of jail time, according to a report in The Guardian on Monday. Peter Nunn, 33, will serve time for directing menacing messages at member of Parliament Stella Creasy, who supported a campaign to put an image of Jane Austen on the £10 note. Nunn's sentence comes under section 127 of the Communications Act, which prohibits electronic messages that are "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character."

Nunn began his Twitter attacks around July 29, 2013, five days after the Bank of England announced that the Austen campaign was successful. "Hi, it took Twitter 30 minutes to ban me before. I'm here again to tell you that I'll rape you tomorrow at 6pm" is one of a handful of tweets Nunn directed at Creasy. The message did indeed originate after the suspension of another of his accounts from which he was tweeting threats. Nunn also used a number of tweets to brand Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez, the activist who spearheaded the Austen campaign, as witches. Another of Nunn's works: "Best way to rape a witch, try and drown her first, then just as she is gagging for air, that is when you enter."

Nunn contended during the trial that he is a feminist, and he denied "using Twitter to advocate violence or rape," according to The Guardian. But that argument was undercut by his own actions—according to an alleged since-deleted blog post and screenshot posted by Nunn himself, he also tweeted on July 28: "Caroline Criado Perez you're hot, can you blame a man for wanting to #rape you #shoutingback #shoutback take it as a compliment not abuse."

District judge Elizabeth Roscoe said she found Nunn "evasive" and "egocentric" and told him in his sentencing, "It was really all about you and your opinions and what you wanted to do. Although we’re only talking about six tweets, it was persistent."

Promoted Comments

Making threats is not a joke, ever. Anyone trying to fall back on that is just an abusive ass reaching for lame excuses.

Threats, when received, must always be treated with a caution to their potential enactment. I don't care how much you try to argue statistics or credibility: when you are on the receiving end of threats, you are still forced to take related precautions because the outcome of it turning out to be real is simply not worth the risk.

How many bomb threats actually result in finding a bomb that would have resulted in casualties? There's a reason they're still treated seriously. Telling someone with less resources to protect themselves that they should just "ignore" threats, online or not, is simply ridiculous.

Threats, even when assumed false, have a deleterious effect on mental state. It's stressful to be harassed repeatedly in this manner. There's a definite harm component involved, and where this type of participation and exposure is part of people's jobs, it's essentially a work environment issue as well.

Online threats are offline threats. They may not happen face to face, but that's literally the only distinction. They're just as "real" as any other form of threat.

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Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston